Aristeide Antonas, Alexios Dallas, Filippos Oraiopoulos discuss upon the curation of the WEAK MONUMENTS* project, currently on show at the Bar Association building in Thessaloniki. Gerasimos Vokos, professor of philosophy at the Department of Political Studies, Aristotle U.Th., will give a lecture on the subject “Murder and Literature”.

*The exhibition WEAK MONUMENTS will be on show until November 18th, 2009, at the Bar Association building in Thessaloniki (2 Isavron str., opening hours: Monday-Sunday 11:00-20:00), in the framework of the parallel programme of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art.More...Postcards

►Alexander Djikia - works from the series “Variations on the theme Different views of Cretan and Mycenaean seals”
Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki 14
until 01.11

►Ηaim Sokol - “To all who ever lived here”
Sculpture installation, donated by Stella Art Foundation to the city of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki Port area, Passengers’ station

“e-MobiLArt” (European Mobile Lab for Interactive Media Artists)

28.10-15.11.2009

Following the first presentation of the European programme “e-MobiLArt” in the framework of the parallel programme of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (May 20-June 10 2009, Warehouse B1, Thessaloniki port), the exhibition is now being presented at the Rondo Sztuki Gallery, Katowice, Poland.More...

Main Concept

PRAXIS: Art in Times of Uncertainty

In his seminal novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859) about
life in Paris and London, the English novelist Charles Dickens wrote
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…we had everything before us, we
had nothing before us.’ aptly capturing the mood of the time. Almost a
hundred and fifty years later the feeling of disillusionment, the
failure of politics to handle the ‘big’ problems, the recent financial
collapse, the assault on the environment and a general sense of
individual and collective alienation which a global society has not
been able to rectify all seem palpable. Might we be the observers of a
universal depreciation of the system of thought, of an irreversible
collapse of ideologies?

In the field of cultural production the dominance of the art market,
the ineffectiveness of cultural theory and the over-theorisation of
culture seem to have dissociated art from real life. In his
provocatively titled book After Theory, the English theorist Terry
Eagleton claims not the death of theory, but the redefinition of its
goals and fields of research. Perhaps this time of uncertainty could be
the moment for the reconsideration of the intrinsic worth of artistic
practice. The moment to explore art as a privileged space for
relatively free expression of ideas and for an alternative view of the
world and the social environment. An art that goes back to life, back
to Praxis, to the creative activity that contributes to the formation
of a political view and to a new way of thinking and being. According
to ancient Chinese philosophy, revolution is realignment with the order
of the world. Could this be the time to seek a true revolution? Can art
provide a window of opportunity in these uncertain times?